Company News: Sony says it will meet PS3 demand

Sony is sticking to its target of shipping 2 million PlayStation 3 consoles by the end of the calendar year, its president said Thursday as he addressed concerns the company wouldn’t be able to meet even the relatively low goal it set ahead of the year-end shopping season.

Speaking to reporters in Tokyo, Sony Corp. President Ryoji Chubachi also said there were no expected changes in the cost of an embarrassing global recall of Sony laptop batteries, which has affected almost every major laptop maker in the world.

“It’s true that availability has been a bottleneck,” Chubachi said of the PlayStation 3. “But the targets are achievable. We do not need to revise our shipment targets.”

Tokyo-based Sony also expects to meet its shipment target of 6 million PS3 ready by the end of the fiscal year ending March and will launch its next generation system in Europe as soon as possible, Chubachi said.

PlayStation 3 made its highly anticipated world debut in Japan in November to long lines, with local stores selling out their supplies of the video game console in a pattern that was followed days later at the U.S. opening.

“Billionaire music mogul David Geffen, long known to be interested in owning the Los Angeles Times, has made a $2 billion cash bid for the paper, two newspapers reported Thursday.

Geffen’s bid has not been accepted or rejected by Times’ parent, Chicago-based Tribune Co., which would prefer a sale of the entire media company instead of individual assets, the Times and Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

Geffen did not return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.

“Ford Motor Co. said Thursday that more of the struggling automaker’s key leaders will report directly to Chief Executive Alan Mulally under a realignment that also consolidates responsibility for global product development.

Ford said the changes are part of an effort to focus more on its worldwide business while better leveraging the global assets and capabilities of the nation’s second-largest automaker.

The changes come more than two months after Mulally, a former Boeing Co. executive, took over as CEO of the automaker from Chairman Bill Ford, who is part of the automaker’s founding family.

Under the new structure, all three of the company’s automotive business unit leaders will report directly to Mulally instead of just one.